Wiring help.. this looks a mess!

mrleon83

i had my les Paul looked over by a tech who replaced the pickup selector, I was holding an old MP3 player while I had the guitar in my hands, got an electric shock which seems to have shorted the switch, I’m looking at doing it myself this time ... can anyone tell me what I need to do? It looks really messy at the moment .. it’s a lp standard https://ibb.co/gyw53qh

thegummy

Is that even possible?

The switch is a crude metal lever, can it be shorted by an electric shock?

monoamine

What. The. Fudge.
Story makes no sense to me. Wiring is... In need of some help.
Go to Seymour Duncan link following a search on 'les Paul 50s wiring'

kluson

 just google Les Paul Wiring for both 50's and modern and take your pick

ICBM

I assume the mp3 player was connected to a power supply at the time... the electric shock would have been from the power supply, which are often not earthed, to the guitar which is, via you.

The guitar wiring looks fine, it's standard for many modern Gibsons. If the switch has stopped working it's very unlikely to be anything to do with the shock and more likely because whoever changed it didn't do a very good job. We won't know that without a pic of the inside of the switch cavity.

There is one problem with the wiring in the pic - the shield from the cable to the switch looks like it's come off the back of the bridge tone pot. That won't stop it working but it will make it very noisy.

mrleon83

@icbm thanks for that , yes the MP3 player was connected to a power supply... and I know it sounds weird but the selector did stop working after ... should there not be a wire connecting all the pots too? I’m new to wiring guitars but want to learn ...

p90fool

mrleon83 said:

 should there not be a wire connecting all the pots too? 

No, the plate they're mounted on acts as the ground between them.

mrleon83

p90fool said:

mrleon83 said:

 should there not be a wire connecting all the pots too? 

No, the plate they're mounted on acts as the ground between them.

Ah ok that’s cool, I just saw a lot of diagrams have a wire connecting, awesome! 

ICBM

mrleon83 said:

@icbm thanks for that , yes the MP3 player was connected to a power supply... and I know it sounds weird but the selector did stop working after ...

Coincidence can be an odd thing.

When you say stopped working, do you mean that now one or both pickups is not working when it alone is selected, or that both pickups are now on at all times?

mrleon83

ICBM said:

mrleon83 said:

@icbm thanks for that , yes the MP3 player was connected to a power supply... and I know it sounds weird but the selector did stop working after ...

Coincidence can be an odd thing.

When you say stopped working, do you mean that now one or both pickups is not working when it alone is selected, or that both pickups are now on at all times?

Indeed, the neck pickup does still work but very low output , which was the problem before the switch was replaced ... it has always been noisy so at the very least I should able to fix that easily ...

ICBM

mrleon83 said:

Indeed, the neck pickup does still work but very low output , which was the problem before the switch was replaced ... it has always been noisy so at the very least I should able to fix that easily ...

If the problem hasn't changed even though the switch was, logic suggests that the switch is not the problem - it will be either the pickup or the volume pot. If it worked for a while, something may have been disturbed.

To fix the shielding issue, solder the frayed ends of the bare wires coming from the grey cable to the patch of solder on the bridge tone pot. You'll need a powerful iron, and be careful not to melt the cable.

mrleon83

Thanks for all the advise guys, love this community ! 

kluson

be careful when applying the iron to the pots, too much heat can kill pots. I would suggest buying a multimeter, They can be purchased quite cheaply, then you can check the integrity of the circuit.

Where are you? if you are not too far away, you could bring it round and I'll do it for you.

Foster

As mentioned above the pickup switch will be fine - it's a fairly robust and simplistic device.

What i'm pondering is you got a shock when holding the guitar and the MP3 player at the same time, if the guitar earthed a current from the MP3 player through you then it *should* bypass the electronics in the guitar as the bridge or tailpiece is typically earthed (so any current should bomb down you to the strings, through the tailpiece and down to the amp to earth).

Have you tried playing your guitar in a completely different amp and guitar cable? If you use any guitar pedals then remove them from the chain and try that. Piece by piece try and narrow down where the fault lies.

mrleon83

kluson said:

be careful when applying the iron to the pots, too much heat can kill pots. I would suggest buying a multimeter, They can be purchased quite cheaply, then you can check the integrity of the circuit.

Where are you? if you are not too far away, you could bring it round and I'll do it for you.

I’m in south northants , it would be good to figure out what’s going on with this geetar....

mrleon83

Foster said:

Have you tried playing your guitar in a completely different amp and guitar cable? If you use any guitar pedals then remove them from the chain and try that. Piece by piece try and narrow down where the fault lies.

I haven’t tried through a different amp (yet) but all my other guitars are acting normal so I assume it is this guitar...